Wedding Advice – Here Comes the Blog

Archive for the ‘Food & Drink’ Category

Wine wedding favors at your wedding will really keep spirits high on your special day! There are many things you can do with a wine theme to make your favors decorative, fun, and memorable.

Wine Charms

These little metal and beaded or enameled charms are designed as a set, but each one is unique. The idea is that when guests at a party put their unique charm around the stem of their glass, they’ll be able to find it again if they put it down. These are a fun item to include as a favor, and they’re pretty too!

Wine Glasses

Today’s personalized wine glasses are available in fine crystal. You can order stemless wine glasses or glasses with traditional stems. You can even have all sorts of logos and designs or monograms printed on them. Some companies will even print your own sketch onto glasses. Think about what you’d like your wine glasses to look like and find a place that will print your desired design.

Your Own Vintage

Know someone who makes wine in small batches? You can still find artisans who will make you a limited batch of wine that you can have bottled in your own bottles. This is a truly unique favor. If you can’t find a vintner to make you this favor, you can order a quantity of a vintage that’s only available in your town or area.

Personalized Labels

Wedding labels for wine bottles are another great idea for a wedding favor. You order the labels and then adhere them to the vintage of your choice. This can be a really unique gift and can also work with miniature champagne bottles. Non-alcoholic or sparkling wines also make a nice favor.

Wine Cork Candles

These darling little candles come in the exact replica of a wine cork. Guests can pop them into an empty wine bottle when they get home and have a lovely candlelit dinner.

Cork Screws

Cork screws are available in every shape and design imaginable. Choose one that goes with your theme or celebrates a landmark or famous spot in the area you’re getting married in. You can get these in sets with wine stoppers as well, where you can present each guest with a complete set they can use at home.

Wine Stoppers

Lovely glass, resin, or metal wine stopper favors are beautiful and useful. You can find them with all sorts of designs from the silly to the elegant. They’re not only pretty to look at, but guests can use them at home when they want to store a half-finished bottle of wine.

Wine Cork Place Card Holders

Combine the favor with the place card holders. These faux wine cork place card holders come with slits to slide your place card and table numbers into. Guests can find their names and then bring them to their tables to take home at the end of the night.

Wine Glass Gel Candles

These candles will truly fool the eye. They look exactly like a glass of red wine. They are really wine glass favors with gel wax poured into them. They look charming on the tables, and after the wedding, guests can take them home as a keepsake.

Go Grape

Think about incorporating grapes into your favors. You can give coasters that have a grape motif or pewter grape napkin rings. You can find painted plaques, magnets, glasses, favor boxes, and more all with a grape design. You can also carry the grape theme over into your centerpieces. Have artificial or real grapes draped in a basket with other fruits and some candles. Or drape them around a candelabra. It will look stunning with your wine-themed décor.

More articles on Wine or Vineyard Wedding Ideas:

• Plan a Vineyard Wine Themed Wedding
• Vineyard and Wine Wedding Ideas
• Wine and Pink: Inspiration Board

So you've gotten engaged and you're starting to plan. There's so much to do (find a church, find the reception spot, find your dress, bridesmaid dresses, tuxes, pick out flowers, cakes, jewelry, gifts for your bridal party, food, wedding favors, *breathe* and more.) So where on earth do you even start? There are hundreds of websites out there that try to help, and even more websites out there that are out to sell, sell, sell. So which ones are worth it?

Well we've done the research for you to help the wedding planning go a little bit easier. To really make it work for you, the bride, we've also segmented the sites into two different categories; free and paid. It's your choice whether you have it in your budget to pay for a site to stay organized, or maybe you're just looking for ideas and you'd rather have a site that's free. Either way is perfectly fine!

Free Wedding Planning Websites

TheKnot.com - Yes, you probably saw this one coming on the list but it's typically a bride favorite. It gives you your own wedding page, allows you to shop thousands of wedding gowns, features to-do lists, guest lists, budget tools, local wedding resources and lots more.

OneWed.com - A lesser known site with just as many options. OneWed offers bridal gown searches, cake designs, hair ideas, a personal checklist for the big day, a wedding website, and lots of advice from other OneWed members as well.

Brides.com - It requires a few steps to sign up, but when you do, you have access to bridal gowns, real wedding ideas, a budget planner, honeymoon help, to-do checklist, and of course, your own wedding website (seeing a trend here?) They also feature bridesmaid and mother-of-the-bride dresses as well.

OneStopWeddingPlanner.com - This site is amazing, they have everything you could ever need starting with food, music, floorplan, transportation, budget, wedding party, photographer, registries, guestlist, flowers, agenda, calendar and lots more. You may have to host your wedding site somewhere else, but it may just be worth it if these options help!

OurWeddingDay.com - Okay, so you want to get on the wagon for the online RSVP's. Not a problem, this site has that going on. They also feature a task-list manager, a contact list, budget-planner, save-the-dates, and more. This one doesn't have too many bells and whistles, but it is most certainly helpful.

PerfectWeddingGuide.com - Supporting you locally, this site helps you find DJ's, flowers, dresses, cakes, favors, invites, rings, and lots more. Plus it features a guest list, a budget tracker, and a custom to-do list for you to keep up with what's left to be done on your timeline.

MarthaStewartWeddings.com - This one is another great site that has more wedding planning tools than you might know what to do with. She even offers a seating chart section (how great is that?) Plus, she gives you etiquette tips for the big day. Other helpful tools include a budget tool, checklist tool, guests tool, vendor tool and vendor search as well!

Paid Wedding Planning Websites

eWedding.com - This site allows you to create a very customized wedding website for free (and your own domain name on a paid plan) There are additional features when you upgrade, plus you can place a poll, events list and RSVP right there on the website to keep everyone up-to-date on what's happening next. Not to mention your own mailing list to use for communicating with your bridal party.

WeddingWindow.com - This might be the best wedding planning site out there. Your options are almost limitless starting with a budget tracker, invitation workshop, thank-you note workshop, a checklist, reminders, personal journal, calendar, vendor list, email blasts, invitation tracker, event manager, save-the-date cards, guest list manager and more.

WeddingTracker.com - Equally impressive, this site has it all. Your own wedding website with personal domain, online RSVP, maps, news & update alerts for your guests, attendants, registry, photo section, guest book, accommodations, and more.

Get Planning!

Hopefully this helps you along with planning your wedding! With so much to do on a limited timeline and budget, it's great to be organized and prepared for the busy months ahead! Do you have a wedding planning site not seen here, but you think it's great? Let us know! It might just help out another bride!

For more bridal essentials, try some of the helpful articles:

• Planning A Wedding - Tips and Timelines
• Planning a Destination Wedding
• Should You Send Save the Date Cards?
• Announcing your Engagement
• Choosing a DJ versus a Live Band
• How to Register for Wedding Gifts
• Wedding Budget